1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to video stream processing apparatuses and video stream processing methods and, more specifically, to a video stream processing apparatus and a video stream processing method for performing a predetermined process on an encoded video stream.
2. Description of the Background Art
In recent years, with the proliferation of video equipment, a person often owns several pieces of video equipment, such as a television receiver, a tuner, a video recorder, and a DVD recorder. Also, with broadcast becoming more multi-channeled, types of videos to be played and recorded by the video equipment have been increased. For example, as for a television receiver, many types of programs, such as movie, sports, drama, and animation, can be displayed on a screen. In order to display many types of programs consistently with high quality, the image quality has to be controlled for each program. Particularly, in order to control the image quality according to the user's preferences, each user has to adjust the image quality manually by using an image-quality controlling function provided to the video equipment. Regarding such image quality control over the video equipment, a scheme disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-132949 is exemplarily known.
However, it is not often the case that the user controls the image quality manually by using the image-quality control function of the video equipment. With each type of video equipment achieving different levels of image quality and each type of displayed video having different preferable settings, most users feel it burdensome to manually control the image quality according to the type of the video equipment and the type of video. Therefore, even though the image quality of displayed video is not so satisfactory, most users tolerate such image quality and keep using the video equipment as it is.